Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is nothing if not a gifted speaker. His silky oratory is coated with reason and leavened with words that invoke emotion and fear – the Zionist entity, the American project, sectarian division and so on. And so it came as no surprise when, on Friday, in his speech to mark Jerusalem Day, he threw out a phrase that was pitched to capture perfectly his by-now-familiar, evenhanded and level-headed ideal of how Lebanon should operate. 'We in Lebanon are committed to the balance of army, people and Resistance,' he said.
No doubt it sounded like a great idea, a harmonious social contract that smacked of positive populism, one that implied our security lay in the hands of two credible bodies: Hezbollah, with its proven martial achievements, and the army, an office of state with its own brand of non-partisan, patriotic purity. With such a mouth-watering tripartite union, could anyone accuse Hezbollah of abandoning the state?
Very easily, as it turns out. The phrase is nothing more than another serving of hot air and falsehoods. The reality, not to mention the irony, is that whatever Hezbollah does is always out of balance in a state that is supposedly founded on consensual dealings.
Indeed, where is the balance between the Resistance and the army when a Hezbollah fighter can fire on a Lebanese army helicopter, like it did on August 28, 2008, kill the pilot, Lieutenant Samer Hanna, and walk free less than one year later.
Where is the balance between the Resistance and the army when it is patently clear that the army, the military arm of the state, has no authority over Hezbollah and can never intervene or impose its will on the heavily-armed militia? The message from Hezbollah is thus: You can carry out your duty but on our terms.
Moving on: Where was the balance between the Resistance and the people when Hezbollah took over the downtown district for 18 months, as it did between December 2006 and May 2008, forcing the closure of businesses and imposing the ever-present, albeit veiled, threat of intimidation?
Where was the balance between the Resistance and the people when Hezbollah used weapons it promised us were only for fighting Israeli aggression to invade West Beirut, as it did on May 7, 2008, killing innocent civilians, including a mother and her child, caught in the crossfire?
Where is the balance between the Resistance and the people when, two weeks ago, its fighters once again turned their weapons internally and brazenly slugged it out with members of Al-Ahbash in the Beirut neighborhood of Bourj Abi Haidar as terrified residents cowered in their homes?
In fact, where was the balance between the Resistance and the people when, on July 11, 2006, Nasrallah made the unilateral decision to enter Israel and kidnap soldiers, an action that led to a month-long war and the deaths of over 1,000 people with whom there was meant to be a 'balance'?
And finally, where is the balance between the Resistance and the people when Hezbollah rejects the notion of an international court formed to bring to justice those who would seek to achieve political ends by using the bomb and the bullet and derail Lebanon’s democratic – a word, the root of which comes from the Greek demos: of the people – aspirations?
Clearly Nasrallah means nothing of the sort. Hezbollah’s weapons exist first and foremost to ensure the perpetuity of the party. They were used on fellow Lebanese in 2008 because the government sought to curb a level of influence that it felt way exceeded Hezbollah’s 'job description' as the national Resistance. Two weeks ago, despite Nasrallah’s denials, Hezbollah reacted to attempts by Damascus to clip its wings with similar firepower and contemptuous disregard for the people. Either way, the only balance the party wants to maintain is the balance of power…one that is tilted in its favor." (source)
